Those Justice Department's legal opinions--many drafted by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo--asserted that President Bush had virtually unlimited powers to wage the "war on terror" and could ignore traditional constitutional rights, including the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and a free press.
"The country will need to have an honest discourse about what happened and what went wrong," Leahy said. "I continue to feel strongly that a Commission of Inquiry would provide us the best nonpartisan setting in which to undertake that study and national conversation."
In February, Leahy first proposed the idea of a "truth and reconciliation commission" as a way of probing the Bush administration's "war on terror" policies, including torture of detainees at military prisons operated by the U.S.
Back then, Leahy, a former prosecutor, told students at Georgetown Law School that although President Barack Obama was unsupportive of the idea of "looking backwards--many Americans feel we need to get to the bottom of what went wrong. We need to be able to read the page before we turn it."
Early last month, Leahy held a hearing, entitled "Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry," where he heard from witnesses who testified about the pros and cons of setting up a special committee to investigate Bush-era abuses. But his idea drew little enthusiasm from his own committee and was treated contemptuously by some Republicans.
Jason Leopold has launched his own Web site, The Public Record, at www.pubrecord.org.
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